A House for the Mind in a World of Our Own Construction

Given that Archangel Michael has agreed to discuss the constructed self or persona with us, perhaps I can be permitted a few words on it, to allow us a context to listen from.

When we experience disappointment, loss, defeat or trauma, we take a number of steps to reduce the likelihood of these types of outcome in the future.

We reach conclusions about what caused that outcome. On the basis of our conclusions, we reach decisions about how we’ll behave in the future.

Having reached a decision on how to be, we then begin to fashion a persona, mask or self that acts along the lines we’ve laid down.

As teenagers we can be seen constructing that self – trying out various trendy lines and fashionable phrases and gestures. We may try on a “move” or dress a certain way or sport a secret handshake.

We may strike a pose that’s thought to be particularly sexy, stand-offish, or dominant. We may cultivate a come-hither or a stay-away look.

Together with our friends, we convene and rehearse over and over how we did, taking our story and refining it with each pass until it reflects our best efforts at making us appear successful in whatever we’re attempting. Once we have our story down pat, it comes to substitute for what really happened and is handed down through eternity. We are as we represent ourselves to be.

Marcel Marceau illustrates this process of constructing a mask here. And he illustrates how life is when a mask we construct sticks.

As the years pass, we perfect our lines into entire scripts and use them to get what we want from life, ward off what we don’t want, and leave us looking like the hero of the piece.

We develop a loyalty to our winning lines and numbers. We become masterful at strategizing, manipulating, and controlling outcomes.

But what we miss out on from behaving in this artificial way is that we remove ourselves from the flow of life. We no longer live in the present moment but live instead in a world of our own construction.

Everything we see, do and hear is filtered through our concepts; life is not met head-on, so to speak.

Life lived from this personal or constructed self lacks aliveness, freedom, spontaneity, and satisfaction. Moreover, the feelings we describe as being “negative” live in this world of the mind. Those feelings don’t live in the world outside the constructed self.

To break the mind’s commitment to and fascination with a world of our own making takes an undivided resolution of decisive strength. Of this moment, Lin-Chi (Rinzai) wrote: “If the student so much as bats an eye, the whole relationship could be spoiled. Apply the mind and at once there’s differentiation; rouse a thought and at once there’s error.” (1) He captures the concentrated energy and focus that needs to be present to make one’s exit from the grip of the mind and the constructed self.

But once outside the house built by the mind, all the mind’s chatter quiets down and we find love and satisfaction rising freely. It becomes clear to us that the persona, the cage we built for ourselves, which started as a guardian and ended as a guard, is what impedes us from living in the Now in a state of flow.

So, as we contemplate or move into Fourth Dimensionality, we need to familiarize ourselves with the structures and processes of the persona or constructed self so that, at a moment when we yearn for aliveness and satisfaction more than anything else in the world, we know what we must leave to attain it.

On Monday’s An Hour with an Angel (May 13, 2013), it’s this persona or constructed self that Archangel Michael will discuss with us. As the energies continue to rise, it becomes easier and easier to understand the workings of our own mind and the time approaches when we emerge from our upsets, our vasanas, and our constructed self.

And for two good views of life in Third Dimensionality and how we came to create the constructed self, see today’s messages by Saul and Jesus.

Saul channeled by John Smallman, “When You Do Not Feel Peace, It’s Because You are Choosing to Be Part of The Illusion,” May 12, 2013, http://johnsmallman.wordpress.com

Footnotes

Reval Reporting

GAoG will not be answering financial questions after the RV. No one here has the expertise to do so. We will however highlight other blogs whose mission includes that and post general, philosophical discussions of financial wayshowing and stewardship.

Ready-Reference Guide: There’s No Need to Fear

Please Note

Neither am I qualified to be, nor do I wish to be considered, a spiritual teacher. I'm a researcher and writer, here simply to share my views and listen to yours as spiritual adults and equals. - Steve Beckow